I Told My Co-worker I Couldn't Love Him, So He Showed Me What I Was Missing—Right On My Desk

The warehouse smelled like someone had tried to bury the reek of industrial carpet under a layer of lemon-scented death. I sat at reception watching two men in matching vests unfold a blackjack table that wobbled every time they let go. One of them swore under his breath and jammed a folded coaster under the shortest leg. High rollers, we were not.

I had volunteered to “coordinate” the setup because it sounded better than sitting at home waiting for Roy to decide what time he felt like showing up. He’d already texted: traffic on 495, babe, don’t wait up. Translation: I’ll get there when the beer’s free and the speeches are over. I rubbed the place on my finger where the ring usually sat—today I’d left it on the soap dish after lotioning my hands—and felt the little dent that refused to tan. Hollow space, hollow sound.

A metallic clatter echoed near the freight door. One of the caterers had dropped a tray of plastic chips; they scattered like cheap candy across the concrete. He looked up at me apologetically, cheeks pink under warehouse fluorescents that turned everyone the color of cafeteria peas. I gave him the same polite smile I gave delivery drivers and sales reps, the one that said I’m harmless, please don’t ask me where the bathroom is. He scooped up the chips, counted them twice, and hustled away.

I turned back to my computer screen. The spreadsheet I’d pulled up earlier—an inventory of surplus paper—glowed in neat, meaningless rows. Numbers that didn’t matter outside these walls. I closed it. Opened it again. Minimized it. Maximized it. The cursor blinked like it was waiting for me to confess something.

Across the floor, the roulette wheel arrived in a cardboard box that said REFURBISHED. The guy wheeling it looked like he’d rather be anywhere else, earbuds dangling like a stethoscope around his neck. He caught me staring and lifted an eyebrow. I looked down at my notepad, doodled a small square, then another square inside it, then another, until the center was too dark to see.

My phone buzzed. Roy’s name lit the screen. I let it ring three times before answering.

“Hey,” I said.

“Babe, yeah, listen—” His voice crackled, thin, like he was calling from the inside of a vending machine. “We’re still stuck. Some jackknifed truck. Might be another hour.”

I pressed the receiver closer, as if proximity could thicken the sound of him. “No problem. Take your time.”

“You sure? I feel like an ass.”

“You’re fine,” I lied. “It’s just casino night.”

He laughed, the edge of it clipped by static. “Win me some chips, okay?”

“Okay.”

The line went dead. I set the phone face-down, lined it up parallel to the keyboard, then nudged it a quarter-inch left, then right again. The ache in my chest felt like the ring dent—small, round, permanent. I swallowed it the way I always did, a dry pill sliding sideways.

Somewhere behind me a new voice said, “So, Beesly, what’s a girl gotta do to get a drink around here?” and the air shifted, just enough for the night to change its mind.

I didn’t look up right away. I kept my eyes on the phone, as if the blank screen might offer instructions on how to breathe normally. Then I let my gaze drift to the source of the voice.

Jim stood with one hip against the laminate counter, arms folded like he’d been there for hours. His tie was already loosened, top button undone. The tiny V of exposed skin made my stomach do something ridiculous, like drop an inch.

“I think the bar opens after Michael’s speech,” I said. “So, midnight.”

He grinned, the left side higher than the right. “Good. Gives me time to perfect my poker face.” He tapped two fingers against his temple. “Right now it’s stuck on ‘bewildered but hopeful.’”

“That’s your regular face.”

“Ouch.” He pressed a hand to his chest. “You wound me, Beesly.”

The banter arrived on cue, a script we’d written in real time over coffee spills and fax jams. I felt my shoulders loosen, the ache under my ribs retreating a step.

He glanced toward the half-assembled craps table. “You playing tonight?”

“I don’t know the rules.”

“I’ll teach you.” He said it like he was offering to carry groceries, simple and automatic, and the casual certainty of it made my pulse skip. “First lesson: never bet against the guy who can make his own chips disappear.”

“Is that you?”

He shrugged. “I’ve been practicing with Dwight’s business cards. Close-up magic is all about confidence.”

I laughed, a small involuntary sound that seemed to surprise us both. He tilted his head, studying me the way he sometimes studied vending-machine snacks—curious, amused, deciding how much he wanted it.

“Second lesson,” he went on, “is the tell.” He leaned in, elbows on the counter, fingers laced. “Everyone has one. Kevin rubs his ear when he’s bluffing. Angela adjusts her bun. Creed blinks exactly once per hand—”

“Creed blinks?”

“Precisely.” His eyes held mine. “Your tell is your eyebrows. They lift a millimeter when you’re lying.”

“They do not.” My eyebrows betrayed me immediately.

He laughed, soft. “See? You’re terrible at this.”

The warehouse clattered around us—folding chairs scraping, the PA crackling to life—but the noise felt far away, like we’d built a pocket of quiet only we could hear. I became aware of my hands resting on the keyboard, fingertips tingling, as if they’d just remembered they could reach out.

Jim straightened, glanced over his shoulder. “Be right back,” he said, tapping the counter twice, our private punctuation. He moved toward the drink table, weaving through stacked chairs with the unhurried grace of someone who knew exactly how much space his body required.

I watched him go. The fluorescent lights washed everything greenish, yet somehow they caught the small creases at the corners of his eyes when he smiled at Phyllis, the way his hair curled slightly against his collar. I traced the line of his shoulders under the cheap cotton shirt and felt an unexpected tug, low and sharp, like a string pulled taut inside me.

I realized I was storing details the way I saved receipts—carefully, automatically, proof of something I wasn’t ready to name.

The double doors banged open like a bad punchline, and Michael strode in with Jan trailing two steps behind, her heels clicking an apology against the concrete. He wore a tuxedo that looked rented by someone who’d never been measured—sleeves too short, satin stripe askew—while Jan’s black dress clung like it was bracing for impact. Between them hung a silence so dense it seemed to absorb the fluorescent hum. Michael lifted his arms as if expecting applause; Jan stared at the floor, lips pressed thin, holding her clutch like a shield. Nobody cheered. The PA gave a sympathetic squawk and died.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Michael announced anyway, “your host has arrived.”

He gestured grandly toward the bar, where Kevin was already pouring himself a soda. Kevin raised the cup in salute, foam slopping onto his fingers. Jan murmured something I couldn’t catch, Michael’s grin faltered, and they moved deeper into the room together yet apart, a two-person funeral procession for their own relationship.

The party exhaled. Chips clicked, cards shuffled, the roulette wheel began its metallic chirp. I stayed behind reception, suddenly superfluous now that the machinery of forced fun was running on its own. I scanned for Jim and found him leaning against the folding bar, one elbow on the laminate, listening to Kevin recount odds on something—probably not craps. His tie was still loose, sleeves rolled once, forearms pale under warehouse light. He laughed at whatever Kevin said, head tilted back just enough to show the line of his throat, and something possessive flared in me, hot and ridiculous. I didn’t move, didn’t wave, just watched the way his shirt pulled across his shoulders when he reached for a napkin, the easy angle of his hips against the table. Mine, the thought came, sharp and stupid, followed immediately by the familiar weight on my bare ring finger.

He glanced up mid-sentence, eyes finding me across the half-lit distance. For a second the room narrowed to that single line of sight. Kevin kept talking; Jim’s gaze didn’t shift. He lifted one shoulder, a fractional shrug that asked, You okay? and answered, Me too, and promised, Later, all at once. The gesture was so small I almost missed it, yet it filled the warehouse like sudden pressure change, air pressing behind my eyes, my ribs, the hollow of my hips. I nodded once, barely, and he turned back to Kevin as if nothing had happened, but the space around me felt newly claimed, walls pulled inward, ceiling lowered, every echo now addressed to us alone.